


Ed's Suicide Note

by AvenuePotter



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, mentions of Martin, mentions of sofia falcone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22579855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvenuePotter/pseuds/AvenuePotter
Summary: (4x14 canon divergence) Ed goes through with his suicide to prevent The Riddler from taking over and harming Lee. He leaves a suicide note for Lee - and Oswald finds that The Riddler has left something behind for him as well. In the aftermath of losing him, Oswald and Lee decide to unite for a common purpose.
Relationships: Edward Nygma/Leslie Thompkins, Oswald Cobblepot & Leslie Thompkins, Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	Ed's Suicide Note

_  
_

_"What if there’s a way to do this where nobody gets hurt?” – Riddler_

_“I don’t believe you.” – Ed, ready to step off the precipice_

_“So, you’re just going to kill yourself without hearing me out?” – Riddler_

_Ed is silent._

_“I’m telling you, Ed, there’s a way to save Lee.” - Riddler_

_Ed begins to take the first step._

_“Without killing yourself. Or killing us.” – Riddler_

_“I still don’t believe you.” – Ed_

_He plummets to his death, noose around his neck._

* * *

“Doc, Doc! Oh, good. We finally found you!” a man who had been loyal to her as Queen of The Narrows calls out. “We brought him to your clinic, but we think it might be too late.”

Lee groans. She’s still in a great deal of pain from what Sofia had just done to her with that hammer. She hadn’t yet made it back to the clinic - her sanctuary. It's been slow going. "Who?"

“Ed.”

“Oh my god,” Lee breathes. Guarding her injured hand, she now and races back to her clinic as fast as she is able to with the man who had alerted her and some other people who had been with him.

“We cut him down, but –“

Tears spring to Lee’s eyes when she sees his corpse laid out on one of the exam tables, a noose about his neck. His face is too blue to even hope that he may still be alive. She has to sit down lest she pass out. “Oh, Ed.”

And then they flow down her cheeks. Big wet tears.

“Hey!” One of the men says to the rest of them. “Let’s give The Doc some privacy. Out.”

She hears the door click.

_Why did you do it Ed? Is this why you left?_

She takes a deep breath and stands up to straighten his suit – she doesn’t want him to look so askew – he wouldn’t want that. He had come to The Narrows disheveled and lost, but she knew that’s not who he wanted to be. Ed had always wanted to be more and she believed in him, just as he believed in her.

She recalled their last encounter. At the end he was trying to tell her something . . . but then he had just disappeared.

Had this been it? Had he gone off to die? Could he really have been so miserable here?

She had thought they were both on track to become who they wanted to be, rising together here in The Narrows. The last time she'd seen him, she'd believed that he had been about to confess his feelings for her as he stood there, struggling to find his words before finally giving up and saying goodbye. She truly believed he had always cared about her, but now she wondered how much . . . or how little. If he could take his own life like this, he must not have felt as close to her as she had to him. She's disappointed in herself for thinking otherwise and exhales a bitter breath, shaking her head and reprimanding herself for her own foolishness.

Lee bandages her hand swiftly – it had almost been forgotten in the shock of Ed’s death - before she starts to straighten his shirt, aligning the buttons and then tucking it over his chest and into his emerald jacket, just so. She feels something rough tickle the back of her hand. Paper.

_Had he left a note? Had he explained his reason for this senseless act?_

She looks within the breast pocket of his suit and finds a small piece of paper, folded into quarters. She sits back down and takes a deep breath before she unfolds it.

* * *

Hours earlier:

_Ed picks up the pen to write. He’s made up his mind – it’s the only way to save Lee from that demented fiend in his mind._

Lee,

It doesn’t feel right to leave without at least saying goodbye. Especially because I’m doing this to keep you safe. It’s difficult to explain, but the only way to end this is to end myself.

_He taps the tip of the pen against the page before moving on. Just once._

But I need to tell you something before I go. The last time we were together I tried to tell you, but I just couldn’t. However, now that I’m facing death, I think I should.

_And now he pauses, bringing both hands to his forehead with the pen entwined among his fingers. He presses his hands against his temples, knowing what he needs to write, yet he just stares down at the blank page. Finally, he releases a heavy sigh._

I love you Lee. More than I love myself.

_That had to be said, otherwise what was the point? It had slipped Ed’s attention that he’d written those words larger than any others on the page so far. He’s been fighting a headache and is starting to lose. Better finish up._

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I can let go - knowing that you’ll be safe once I’m gone. Take care of yourself and your flock in The Narrows, but don’t worry about me. I am ready for the inevitable.

_He puts down the shaky pen for a second and looks out the grimy window of his room. It overlooks the filth of The Narrows. Yes, he’s ready. He knows he can’t follow Lee on her quest to help these people out of this slum any longer – he has to protect her. Ed signs off, refusing to use the salutation “Love.” That is reserved for those who love you back._

Goodbye,

Ed

_He tucks the note into his breast pocket, certain that she’ll find it when she finds his body, when she tries to save him in vain, but will have to satisfy herself with a makeshift autopsy at her clinic instead because he plans to die._

* * *

Lee barely has time to process Ed’s words – _he loved her? he did this senseless thing to protect her?_ \- before Oswald bursts into the clinic. Even though she can barely see anything through her tears, she stands up and orders him out.

“Edward!” Oswald rushes over to the exam table, not heeding her words at all. His hands are all over Ed’s body as he wails.

Lee begs him, “Please Oswald, don’t.”

“How could you do this, Ed? WHY?” Oswald is holding Ed’s lapels in his hands so tightly his knuckles are turning white.

Lee thought that Ed had been on the outs with Penguin, yet here he was in her clinic inexplicably grieving for him.

“What happened between you two?” Lee asks.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

"I mean, you obviously broke out of Arkham to come down here once you heard Ed had passed – and quite quickly too, I might add. That couldn’t have been easy. But I don't understand. Why do you even care?”

“You couldn’t possibly understand this, Lee." Oswald looks hurt at the implication. "You only cared about his weak side, tried to prop him up. But I loved his strong side, too.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Riddler? Ever heard of him?”

“Of course. But that’s not who Ed was anymore.”

“You are so wrong about that,” Oswald laughs a bitter laugh. “He was in there. No one knew Edward like I did. No one.”

“Oh, I think I knew him well enough,” Lee counters. “And at least I didn’t drag him down into the criminal underworld like you did and hurt him –“

“Really!?” Oswald exclaims. “Are _you_ claiming that you had no intentions of hurting him? Really? He was in love with you, you know. Just one visit at Arkham and I knew.” Oswald shakes his head in disappointment and clucks. “A girl like you with a guy like Ed? What a fool.”

Lee looks at the note again and sighs. Ed _had_ loved her. Just knowing that would have brought warmth to her heart if he were still alive, but now, staring at those words on the page don't do anything but turn her cold. She looks over at his corpse and finds herself thinking yet once again about how it had felt to lose Mario. Will her grief never end? Is there a point to of any of this?

“Give me that,” Oswald says and snatches the note from her hands. He pores over it quickly and says, “Garbage. Utter drivel.”

“Hey!” Lee protests.

“Okay, fine, ED may have felt this way about you. But like I said, there’s always been more to him than meets the eye. You and I both know that.” Edward had left a message for him, too. He can feel it. “Do you have a candle?”

“A candle? What is this, the nineteenth century?”

“A lighter then?”

“Nobody smokes anymore.”

“Not even in The Narrows?”

“Not in MY clinic.”

“Okay, fine.” Oswald starts rummaging around in her things.

“Hey!”

“I think I found something. You use this for cauterizing wounds, no?” Oswald holds up an instrument.

“Yes.”

“This thing looks ancient,” Oswald muses as he examines it, shaking his head. “Does it still heat up?”

“This is The Narrows. Sometimes ancient is all we’ve got,” Lee says wryly. “But yes, it still works.”

“Will you do the honors?” Oswald asks, holding out the note and the cauterizer. “Just be careful not to burn it. This is the last piece we have of that precious man.”

She looks at him quizzically.

“Invisible ink,” Oswald says. “I’ll bet you he left me a note in invisible ink.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because this is Ed,” Oswald says, tilting his head to the side with a wry smile. “Come on, humor me, Lee. Just don’t burn it.”

Lee finds herself heating up the tool and applying a sparing amount of heat underneath the letter. It is after all, paper and not flesh. She must be careful that it doesn’t go up in flames.

“Oh!” She startles when she sees new letters emerge between the blue ink of Ed’s carefully printed words, almost dropping his note in her attempt to read them.

* * *

Hours Earlier:

_The Riddler is fighting to stay alive. Fighting Ed. But he knows that Ed is resigned to follow through now and may just do it. And it seems plausible - at least in this moment. The poor boy is even writing a suicide note!_

_But just in case Ed succeeds – just in case he can’t convince him of what he needs to do – he needs to leave a message for Oswald and Ed’s note is the perfect opportunity to do so._

_He slips his own words onto the page when Ed struggles, when his thoughts are squarely on Lee instead of the task at hand. Ed hadn’t even noticed the second pen, a twin to his own, filled with invisible ink just sitting there on the desk. The Riddler knows that Oswald will know what to do, how to find this message. His best friend knows him so well._

__

Oswald,

I tried, but Ed won.

I’m so sorry.

I wanted to let you know

before I go that I love you

and I’m going to miss you.

You were my very best friend.

Take care of yourself.

Love,

Riddler

* * *

Oswald cries profusely as he holds The Riddler’s message in his hands. Eventually he moans with grief. “I don’t think I can go on without him.”

“I’m not sure I can either,” Lee says woodenly.

“What do you mean?” Oswald says accusingly. “You never loved him.”

“I wonder about that,” she says. “In an odd way, I think I was beginning to.” She sprouts an ironic smile. “But isn’t it funny, the way of the universe? It almost gives, but then it takes away. Now I’ll never have a chance to know. It was stolen from me.”

“Neither will I,” Oswald sulks.

“Who do you think was menacing him? I know now that it most certainly wasn’t you.”

“What do you mean?”

“In his note, Ed kept saying that he did this to keep me safe.” Lee thinks for a bit. “He probably figured out that Sofia Falcone was planning to take The Narrows by force. What if she had threatened me and he made some kind of deal with her in exchange for my safety? One that would take him out of the picture?” Oswald doesn’t answer her – he can’t see the Edward he knows being that selfless - or stupid. Sofia could never be trusted. Lee looks down at her loosely bandaged hand and says morosely, “If that was the case, it was all for naught.”

“That bitch,” Oswald spits. “She has my son -” Oswald stops and clears his throat. “I mean, Martin. This boy from her orphanage – a sweet boy. I’d taken him under my wing. But now she’s taken him into her custody and I fear he’s not safe. When she finds out that I’m out -”

“Well, it’s obvious what we have to do then,” Lee says with steely determination.

“What?”

“You and me, Oswald? We’re going to take that bitch out.” She holds up her injured hand – the one that Sofia had bashed in with her hammer – it’s already stared bleeding through the bandage. “It’s time.”

“Agreed,” Oswald says. “We’ll do it. For Ed.”

Lee nods. “For Ed.”

* * *

That night, Lee goes to sleep and has vivid dreams about the Ed she knew and The Riddler part of him that she had feared. By the time she wakes up, she firmly believes that she could have accepted both of them, dark as her heart was becoming once again thanks to Sofia and the myriad of tragedies that had befallen her recently.

“My god, I think I really _did_ love him,” she finally realizes, sitting up in bed.

Then she drops her head into her hands, feeling guilty for being a party to repressing his dark nature. Especially because she knows with certainty that she doesn’t want to repress hers anymore.

“It’s too bad you’re gone now, Ed. We’ll never know what we could have been.”

She gets out of bed and pulls herself together, applying scary heavy makeup and donning green - Ed's signature color - in his honor. Then she numbly sets to work. She and Oswald have a little boy to rescue. And then they can all get ice cream. Ed’s favorite.

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> I did this without a beta while driven by an insistent muse. Hopefully there weren't too many errors! Thank you for your patience.


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